Little Ducks Childcare Mar/Apr 2019 A note from your Centre Manager We have had a strong focus on our local community here at Wilston this past two months and are looking to ensure these strong community ties continue into the rest of the year. We have arranged for some local specialists to visit the service throughout the year to share their knowledge with the educators and children. Our most recent visits have been from Dr Grant at Method Dental and Chris from the Grange Library. If any of our families know of a great local business, service or group they can recommend to us we are currently seeking to build connections with these services so please let us know. We have also been busy revisiting our connections between our ECTs and our local schools this year. Our early childhood teacher Miss Natasha and myself will be visiting St Columba’s Primary, Wilston State School and Windsor State School over the next month to visit the Prep classrooms and meet with the Prep teachers. This process of having open communication with our local schools is so important when it comes to transitioning our children from Kin- dergarten to Prep. We use these opportunities to ensure that our kindergarten program re- mains relevant and current in line with the expectations of Prep and also to share infor- mation about our program and children to better support them as they leave our play based curriculum to head to the more formalized primary education setting. We have invited the schools to also visit us here at Little Ducks later in the year to help our children feel secure and comfortable when they get to Prep by being able to see a families face. We love involving our community and our families in our experiences here at Wilston. If you would like to contribute an opportunity of learn- ing through your profession or connections please do not hesitate to come and see myself or your room educators and we discuss this fur- ther. Sincerely, Rebecca Armstrong (Centre Manager) 169 Newmarket Road Wilston QLD 4051 Phone (07) 3356 8100 Fax (07) 3356 8400 [email protected] Upcoming Events! Marc h April Friday 2nd – Clean Up Australia Day Thursday 18th – Easter Egg Hunt ‘Little Ducks Clean Up Day’– each Celebrating the tradition of the East- taking part in keeping our environ- er Egg hunt celebrated in many ment clean and beautiful. countries around the world. Come along at 3:30pm to participate in the Little Ducks egg hunt. Friday 29th – Earth Hour Little Ducks will go “electricity free between 10am and 11am” to teach Friday 19th – Good Friday children about being energy con- PUBLIC HOLIDAY scious. Monday 22nd – Easter Monday PUBLIC HOLIDAY Thursday 25th - ANZAC Day PUBLIC HOLIDAY Leading up to this day, we will pay our respect to the diggers. Policy Reviews We value your input and feedback ….. The policies/procedures in review are: EXCLUSION POLICY GRIEVANCE PROCEDURE - EDUCATORS AND STAFF GRIEVANCE POLICY IMMUNISATION POLICY LATE COLLECTION OF CHILDREN POLICY MAINTENANCE POLICY ANIMAL AND PETS POLICY SANDPIT PROCEDURE SAFE SLEEPING POLICY SUN PROTECTION AND CLOTHING POLICY TOILET TRAINING POLICY AND PROCEDURE EXCURSION POLICY Ways that you can provide feedback are: Our policies are available to read in the foyer and you can give feedback in 2 ways, by email or anonymously via the suggestion box. Kindergarten Enrolment 2020 Children are eligible for kindergarten when they turn 4 by June 30 in the year they are attending kin- dergarten. For all currently enrolled children you will receive a kindergarten offer letter and welcome pack in July 2019. This offer will include the days you are currently enrolled at Little Ducks in the Junior Kindy pro- gram. If you wish to make changes to your enrolled days for 2020 please let me know when the offer is made so we can ensure all existing families get their preferences before we offer enrolment to fam- ilies on the waitlist. Our approved kindergarten program is run by Miss Vicki Anderson and Miss Natasha Vanderkruk. Both Miss Vicki and Miss Natasha hold university level teaching qualifications and Queensland College of Teachers Registration. Miss Vicki has been working as a kindergarten teacher at Little Ducks for 7years this year and prior to that has 9years experience in New Zealand as a primary school teacher. Miss Natasha has 3 years experience in kindergarten and a further 3 years experience in Primary School. Our official kindergarten program runs from 8am – 4pm 40 weeks a year. Being within the child care service you have access to flexible hours and days of care across the 51 weeks we are open. Miss Vicki and Miss Natasha are guided by the Queensland Kindergarten Learning Guideline and im- plement their program in line with the significant learning outlined in this curriculum document. At the end of your kindergarten year you will receive a transition statement and be asked to provide consent for us to forward this to your child’s primary school for 2021 to aid in the transition to school process. Miss Natasha, Miss Vicki and myself have a strong relationship with Wilston State School, Windsor State School and St Columbas. We also meet regularly with our Transitions and Partnerships Officer from the Department of Education and Training to keep us up to date on the newest information and provide professional networking opportunities. We also promote extended learning opportunities through French lessons, Chess lessons and our Museum Loan subscriptions. Programming at Wilston Dear parents, As you will all know, this year we have moved to digital programming for documenting the learning and teaching that is occurring in the classrooms throughout Little Ducks Wilston. The purpose of docu- mentation is to allow educators to plan effectively for children’s current and future learning and to communicate children’s learning and development and progress with families. We believe that using the Storypark platform allows families to have 24/7 access to the classroom program, as well as being able to see goals set by educators and families and to read learning stories written about your child. Having these documents on Storypark, also allows families to regularly give input, feedback and share information about their child through the program, goals and learning stories. Our weekly program is developed using the Early Years Learning Framework Planning Cycle and fol- lowing the spontaneous interests of the children. Educators gather information through observation, then question on how children can be supported to learn and develop. then plan experiences and evaluate learning and development. When you are reading the weekly plan there is lots to see! The learning outcomes are written down the left hand side of the page, and activities and experiences all fit into these five areas throughout the week. Educators link experiences to goals, reflections and learning stories. When these links are relevant to your child, you will be able to click on them to see the appropriate information. If it doesn’t relate to your child, the link will appear grey and you will be unable to see the related information. We ask for family input in the program, if you have ideas, comments, thoughts, or input that you would like to add; we encourage you to add a ‘comment’ in the relevant comment box. This then allows us to further plan, ensuring we are helping our children learn and develop the best way possible. When you scroll to the bottom of the weekly program you will notice boxes such as ‘parent information’, ‘links to literature’, ‘weekly goal’ etc…. read these information boxes to get an insight on the purposeful teach- ing that is occurring, as well as reading any important notes that the educators might have for you. Each child in the service has at least one personal goal that the educators have chosen and are work- ing towards helping the child to achieve. This is developed on reflecting on each individuals learning and development using the professional knowledge, Early Years Learning Framework and Develop- mental Milestones. It is important to us that we support children in their areas of need and where their current development is. These goals are reassessed at least four times a year and modified when educators identify new areas of development where children may need support. The educators then plan ways to support the child in reaching this goal and plan experiences, conversations, group times, routines and resources to help support the child to reach their goal. We also encourage families to set their own goals for their child. We are firm believers that families know their child best, and our role is to support the family and child through their early childhood de- velopment. If you have not set a goal for your child yet this year, please see your child’s educator for a goal form, or feel free to start a ‘conversation’ or make a ‘note’ on your child’s Storypark profile. This will then allow the educators to help your family in reaching these goals for your child. Our learning stories are written when the educators notice a moment of significance for a child. They can be written for individuals, in small groups or as part of a whole class. You can expect to see at least one individual and one larger group story with your child included in each month. This gives fam- ilies a good snapshot of your child’s learning and development throughout the year. We appreciate parent input in learning stories, as we recognize that lots of valuable learning happens in the home environment, so please take the time to comment on the learning stories and if you have any extra information that may be relevant to your child’s development and interests.